Essay On Ghetto

The Holocaust was a horrible event in history, and a time of terror for millions of Jewish people. The ultimate goal of Hitler and the Nazis was to exterminate all of the Jews and create a perfect Aryan race. The first step in this awful process required the establishment of ghettos. Ghettos were mainly used to keep the Jewish population in one place until the Germans could find a way to kill the entire population. The first ghetto was established in 1939, and the largest ghetto was the Warsaw ghetto. The Nazis moved from city to city and quarantined all of the Jewish people into ghettos. Many people had no idea why they were forced into the ghettos, and did not understand the dangers that the future held. Others knew about the concentration camps and were deathly afraid of the future. The Warsaw is ghetto was the most well-known ghetto. Many inhuman acts were carried out by Nazis, such as mass shootings, forced labor, and malnutrition of the Jews. There were also uprisings in some of the ghettos. These uprisings usually ended with the death of many Jews, but they improved morale. Ghettos were a terrible place to live, and they offered a grim future. Events that took place in the ghettos were heartbreaking, such as the reasons why they were made, the awful treatment of human beings, and the deadly uprisings that took place. Originally, ghettos were created as a short-term solution to keep all of the Jews in one place until they could all be exterminated. They turned out to become more of a long term place of residence for many Jews until the final solution. There were many warning signs that something like the ghettos was going to occur. Such as restrictions on what restaurants Jews could go to, and the initiation of curfews. They were also forced to wear a yellow star to identify themselves as Jewish. In the novel Night, many members of the community were concerned about these new restrictions. Elie says “My father’s view was that it was not all bleak...” then Elie’s father says “The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal” (Weisel 11). Little did his father know of the dangers that lay ahead. This quote really makes it clear how oblivious the Jewish people were. They did not see the creation of ghettos as a threat, and by the time they realized the horrors they were going to face it was too late. The Germans created ghettos, where forced labor, malnutrition, overcrowding,abuse, killing, and appalling health conditions killed off a huge part of the population. One in every ten Jews died in the Warsaw ghettos in 1941 ("Ghettos: History and Overview "). The amount of time that Jews were in ghettos continued to grow, because they carried out free manual labor. Special ghettos were created for Jews that were to be deported from Romania to Transnistria. Nazis transferred the Jews to the streets where other Jews had recently been murdered on. A ghetto in Theresienstadt was created in 1941. It was made to exhibit the treatment of Jews to the public, and to cover up the horrors of the final solution ("Ghettos: History and Overview "). Some Jews were blind to the Nazis plans, and believed the ghettos could be a safe place to stay until the war was over. This is seen in the book Night, after the German soldiers occupy …show more content…
What do you say now? Where is their famous cruelty? The Germans were already in our town, the fascists were already in power, the verdict was already out- and the Jews of Sighet were still smiling." (Wiesel 10).
This quote explains how oblivious many Jews were to the danger of the Germans, and how little was shared about the Holocaust to the world. People were not overly afraid when ghettos were first formed, as seen in the quote from night, they did not comprehend what was going to happen to them. It was not until they experienced the horror within the ghettos that they finally realized the grave danger they were in. Originally ghettos were created to be temporary, but ended up housing Jews for many